Paper short abstract:

Morocco presented an African Agenda for Migration at the AU in 2018. This paper shows how the humanist and afro-centred discourse from Morocco’s general migration and African policies have limited protection potential for forced migrants and is mainly deployed for strategic national objectives.

Paper long abstract:

Over the past decade, the Moroccan authorities deployed a discourse of solidarity and human rights in its immigration policies. This became apparent in its 2011 Constitution Preamble and 2013 National Immigration and Asylum Strategy (SNIA). Simultaneously, Morocco became a prime partner in the European Union’s (EU) external migration policy, and was appointed African Union (AU) ‘Leader’ on migration issue when it re-joined the bloc in 2017.

Its implementation record as to the effective protection of migrant rights, however, is rather poor. Besides the residence status regularisation of about 50.000 migrants, no accessible rights guarantees have been put into practice for forced and irregular migrants: Morocco has no asylum procedure and violations of sub-Saharan migrants’ fundamental rights are widespread (United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance 2019 report).

While Morocco presented an African Agenda for Migration at the 2018 AU Assembly of Heads of State and Government, its continental migration and asylum policies have not been scrutinised in the way its cooperation with the EU or the SNIA have (El Qadim, 2018).

This paper assesses the Agenda’s effective protection potential for forced and irregular migrants, by situating it in the wider context of Morocco’s general migration policy and its general African policy. This contextualisation supports the assumption that also Morocco’s humanist and afro-centred discourse in the AU serves ulterior economic and geostrategic objectives in the first place.